


can't sleep

by without_a_box



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied Axel/Roxas - Freeform, Implied Riku/Sora - Freeform, Insomnia, Kinda Fluffy, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 21:50:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10052867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/without_a_box/pseuds/without_a_box
Summary: in the middle of the night, sora becomes other people





	

**Author's Note:**

> fair warning i wrote this at 1am because i had too much coffee today and too many feelings
> 
> inspired by this lovely piece of artwork: http://sekajiku.tumblr.com/post/156980386427/

Sora was beautiful in a careless sort of way. His perpetual bedhead and lazy grin drew people to him. The way his freckles splattered across his nose and his blue blue eyes welcomed people. Sora was undeniably magnetic. 

But at 3 am it was hard to see this.

Sora sat up in his bed, staring at the wall blankly, looking nothing like the person Riku knew with all his heart. The moonlight cast shadows across the room, stark lines across the three beds, emphasizing the rumpled sheets in front of the boy.

It was a silent night at the Mysterious Tower, the only sounds were that of the breathing in the room, Kairi's quiet snores, and Sora's long deep drawn out breaths. There were no birds or bugs in this strange magical land, every shifting sheet or careful footstep sounding like shattered glass in the dead of night.

Riku watched him through hooded eyes, this was, of course, a nightly event. They had both seen too much to sleep as soundly as Kairi did, they knew what deadly dangers hid in the shadows, they did not have the same light as their friend did.

Sora's spikes feel flat against the back of his head from when he did try to sleep, the longer Riku watches the more they start to bounce back up. But when it is flat, and on darker nights, when Riku dreams of people he does not know, Sora almost looks like a different person, almost looks like a girl he does not remember.

Other nights, the brighter ones, after days of training in the company of Lea, Sora becomes Roxas again. Sora does not say anything but Riku knows he is still there. Those are the nights that, instead of watching the wall, Sora watches him. There is a bitterness in his eyes that Sora does not know how to display, a bitterness and anger that only Roxas had.

In the middle of the night, Sora becomes other people. In the middle of the day, Riku tells Kairi this.

Sora is jumping around Lea, smacking him around playfully as Lea clumsily tries to get used to the keyblade, sometimes just throwing the whole weapon at Sora's head. Sora smiles at this, then sometimes when Lea has turned away it turns sad.  

Riku and Kairi stand on the other side of the yard, they're taking a break, and Riku can tell her. 

"He doesn't sleep anymore." He tells her, voice lowered and head turned away from the sight of Sora. 

She looks at him, she already knows this, Sora is her best friend. And despite the size of his grin, it cannot distract from the dark circles under his eyes.

"There are people in his heart, I know, I've seen them. And at night I think they come out, I think they haunt him."

Kairi simultaneously understands and doesn't. She knows what it's like to live with another in her heart, but Namine wanted to come back, Namine did not try to hold on to personhood like Roxas did, Namine did not want to be and to feel as much as Roxas did. Namine was not resentful or bitter.

Namine did not have her own Axel.

Kairi does not say anything, she watches Sora and Lea across the yard, keyblade clashing against keyblade, Sora's laughter drifting over like a careless summer's breeze. Sora is not haunted when the sun is out, his demons have no hold of him here. There is no place for this ghosts right now.

His ghosts wait for the sunset. Once dinner is over, and they have washed for the night, and they drag their aching bodies into soft beds and turn out the lights and settle in, this is where Sora's watch begins.

Riku has lived in the darkness for long enough, has slept in places surrounded by enemies, times when he has known the dangers and times when he believed the danger was his friend. He sleeps until the darkness eats his dreams, until the nightmares shake him awake, until Sora sits up.

When they first starting rooming together this was extremely startling, Sora was known for sleeping through the night and halfway through the next day, him waking up in the middle of the night was just unheard of. He would throw himself out of bed, breathing deeply and quickly, Kingdom Key flashing into his hand. Kairi and Riku would jump over, calm him down, stay and talk with him the whole night.

Slowly Sora learned how to quietly wake from a nightmare, to stop the keyblade appearing to defend against an imaginary enemy, he learned how to avoid waking Riku and Kairi. But Riku slept in the bed next to him, and he learned to sleep with one eye open for those many nights he found himself lonely against the dark and in need of desperate rest.

Riku learned to watch Sora instead of helping him, to wait for him, to see if it was still Sora.

Some nights he wonders if Sora is going to get up and it's not Sora who's in control in the morning, maybe one day it will be one of those strangers taking refuge in Sora's heart. Riku wonders what he would do if that were to happen, Riku wonders what he could do.

So once again Riku finds himself awake at 3 am.

Sora is sitting cross-legged near the end of the bed, his blankets in a crumbled mess in front of him, tonight he couldn't stop Kingdom Key, so it sits in the middle of the bed behind Sora. 

It is a cloudless night and the shadows of the room hold no dangers. He can hear Kairi shuffle in her sleep and someone walking down the stairs outside their door.

Sora stares blankly at the wall ahead of him.

Tonight Riku can tell it is Sora, there is no bitterness in his eyes, no darkness in his hair. He just looks sad and tired and carelessly beautiful. And tonight Riku cannot stop the words that leave his mouth.

"Can't sleep?"

And Sora turns his head slowly towards him and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> so hey im back with the writing, just started my second year of uni so that might explain why i have had no fics in a while but hey im only a person  
> hope you enjoyed my little fic


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